


Tooth and Nail

by Mazarin221b



Category: Sherlock (TV)
Genre: Adultery, Angst, Canon Compliant, Case Fic, Episode: s03e03 His Last Vow, Multi, Pining, Post-His Last Vow
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2014-03-02
Updated: 2016-01-09
Packaged: 2018-01-14 08:36:49
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 4
Words: 13,864
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1259920
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Mazarin221b/pseuds/Mazarin221b
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Sherlock never expected to see John Watson again. So when the plane landed on the tarmac, there were a whole lot of uncomfortable truths that all three of them were going to have to face - the least of which was why Mary Morstan Watson was being targeted by a newly-returned Moriarty.</p><p> <i>John smiles but it’s a tight, small, smile that Sherlock knows means that he can hear the lie in Sherlock’s words. John will sort it out, he always does, eventually, and when he does there will be hell to pay. Mary looks sympathetic. She knows. She understands the price paid for her freedom, even if she knows it had nothing whatsoever to do with her at all.</i></p><p>  <i>Always for John Watson. His pressure point.</i></p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> With deepest thanks to Mydwynter and Lacuna for top-quality beta, and caring enough to make sure this was the best it could be.

Jim Moriarty looks up from the pretentiously official gold seal on the letter in his hands to the woman standing on the other side of his desk.

_The person known as AGRA is no longer available for assignments._

“They’re sending a goodbye note? How disgustingly polite.”

The woman lifts her chin and shifts so she’s standing straight and tall—her dark hair slicked back from her forehead and eyelashes bare, nothing to interfere with her eyesight—and levels him with her unsettling, assessing gaze. He has no doubt if he were to twitch his fingers right now, he’d have a bullet through the eye before he could take a breath.

Intelligent, ruthless and skilled. That’s what he’s always liked about her.

“Time to go under, Mr. Moriarty,” she says. “Leave the game before it plays you.” She reaches into her bag and carefully places a very familiar Walther on the desk between them —a statement of mutual self-destruction. “To your continued good fortune,” she adds, and turns confidently toward the door. He sees his sister glance up from her computer when she passes, and then the door swings closed with a barely audible click of the automatic lock.

Moriarty slowly turns back to the monitor behind his desk to watch two little children sit huddled in the dark, damp remains of a candy factory, and suppresses a shudder.

………………………………………………………

Sherlock unfastens his seatbelt as soon as the wheels touch the tarmac, and before the plane even stops rolling he’s standing at the door. His exile, his slow execution, commuted by miraculous timing.

Sherlock is instantly suspicious.

John and Mary are standing next to Mycroft’s car, the cold January breeze ruffling Mary’s hair and loose-fitting maternity shirt under her open coat. Sherlock imagines it must be warm, growing a life inside of your body. He idly wishes he could try it, just once.

“All sources point to a cannibalised uplink originating in South Africa,” Mycroft says, and the sound grates Sherlock’s nerves. “Best come back to my office. Someone is very aware of what we are doing here, given the rather ... coincidental timing of Moriarty’s return.”

“A leak, Mycroft?” Sherlock sneers. “I thought you were above such weaknesses.”

Mycroft scowls and looks ready to reply just as John steps between them. “Need I remind you both we’re standing in the middle of an open airfield? Given what we just saw, perhaps we could save the bickering for a more secure location.”

Sherlock glances over at Mary, who is slowly scanning the horizon. Sherlock does the same, and catches the flash of light on a scope just as she yells “Down!”, leaving them all to duck behind the car as a bullet clips the roof.

“I’m pretty well over having guns pointed at me,” John says, crouching low below the level of the windows, as he carefully opens the door and lets Mary climb into the car. Sherlock flinches as another shot shatters the window, and he can feel the rain of tiny bits of glass against his head and shoulders. He tries to grab John and shove him into the car but John won’t move.

“Get in the car!” Sherlock yells, but John still won’t budge. Sherlock curses him under his breath for a ridiculous sentimental idiot and grabs his shoulder to force him into the car, but before he gets any leverage John shoves back, hard, throwing Sherlock into the back seat. John slaps the top of the car twice to signal the driver and jumps in just as the car peels away. The door is still partly open, leaving Sherlock to fight to pull John all the way into the car to safety as the driver swerves wildly to evade additional shots that are pinging to the ground in front of them. He finally manages, leaving them both on the floorboards as Mary pulls the door closed and Mycroft barks instructions to his driver to get them to Whitehall as quickly as possible.

Sherlock looks up at John’s blue, blue eyes barely six inches from his own, the weight of him still pinning Sherlock to the floor, and they grin at each other.

“Looks like the game still has the same players after all,” John says, and Sherlock can’t help but laugh.

………………………………………………..

Mycroft’s underground office is still as bleak and grey as the day Sherlock came back to London. The previous one was, at least, bigger with some warmth, but Sherlock understands budget cuts and viciously hopes Mycroft is as uncomfortable as possible as he plots.

“Obviously, when you told me Moriarty was dead, I shouldn’t have taken your word for it,” Sherlock says and drops into a chair by the door. Mary and John both stand against the wall, holding hands and wearing identical frowns. Sherlock notes the worry lines around Mary’s eyes.

“Yes, well, we were also relying on your rather startling first-person account,” Mycroft says, and sits at his desk. “There was, of course, no body recovered, as his minions managed to beat us to it, but the blood and brain matter collected was a DNA match.”

“Surgery. Simple. You should have checked. He’s not above it, cutting a piece of his own brain out to leave somewhere.” Sherlock drops his head back and stares at the dull grey ceiling. “So hard to get good help these days,” he adds, and John chuckles, as Sherlock knew he would. He doesn’t blame Mycroft too terribly much, not really, but he could listen to John Watson snort with derisive laughter for the rest of his life.

Mycroft sighs. “Yes, well, be that as it may, we cannot change it. We have a situation to deal with. I will continue to gather information and we will find him.” Mycroft stands and walks toward the door. The light fixture over his desk shines brightly behind him as he looms over Sherlock’s chair, and Sherlock fights not to squint. “The car will be here to take you back to my house in fifteen minutes.”

Sherlock groans. He should have known there would be a catch. Bloody idiots, all of them. Magnussen’s execution was a necessary evil, and they knew it. He’s not a marauding murderer, despite all indications to the contrary.

“Don’t grumble. It’s a condition of your commutation that you stay … under my roof. Your sentence will be revisited at the end of this case. Deal with this, and you may gain your complete reprieve.” Mycroft leaves, closing the door carefully behind him, and Sherlock knows he’s fully aware of the bomb he just left ticking.

Sherlock can feel the tension grow the longer the silence settles. He finally risks a glance at John, and the puzzled look he gives back does not bode well for Sherlock’s future.

“I thought … I thought you were just being got out of the way until the dust settles,” John says.

Sherlock swallows. “There was a contingent that wanted a bit more of an...exile element brought into it. More dramatic.” Sherlock risks a smile. “Politicians. Always doing everything for show.”

John smiles but it’s a tight, small, smile that Sherlock knows means that he can hear the lie in Sherlock’s words. John will sort it out, he always does, eventually, and when he does there will be hell to pay. Mary looks sympathetic. She knows. She understands the price paid for her freedom, even if she knows it had nothing whatsoever to do with her at all.

Always for John Watson. His pressure point.

Mary looks away and finds a seat, settling in with a sigh and a hand on her belly. She looks well, if a bit puffy, and John pats her shoulder.

“You realize this idiot wants us to name the baby after him,” he says. “I did tell him, by the way, about the scan.”

“Sherlock’s not so bad,” Mary says. “It’s the William part I’m not so sure about.” Sherlock snorts, and Mary cracks a smirk that lifts one side of her mouth. “I think we’re going with Olivia.”

“Olivia Sherlock Watson,” Sherlock says, and there it is, that flash of a smile from John that makes Sherlock’s heart speed and then almost stall, leaving him high and breathless.

“Not even remotely. I’m not sure we should name her after anyone. I’m not, save the Watson.” John places a gentle hand over the swell of Mary’s stomach and must feel the baby move, or something, because he twitches a smile. Sherlock can’t decide if he’s fascinated or slightly terrified at the change the baby will bring, but given the future he just avoided, he’s not going to dwell on it.

“Sherlock was my great-grandfather’s name,” Sherlock says. “Family ties and all that.”

Mary looks down at her belly. “I was named for my grandmother,” she says, and really, there’s nothing Sherlock can say to that, because now that he’s in Mycroft’s office he could work out, in the blink of an eye, what that name actually is. But he has and will refrain. John says he doesn’t want to know and Sherlock isn’t sure he wouldn’t tell him. John shifts on his feet but says nothing, and the air inside the office goes as still and cold as death.

………….......................................

Mycroft sends John and Mary home in the car, and as Mycroft shows them out Sherlock sulks around the office and tries to ignore the feeling of prison walls closing around him.

Death as the price of six months of pure freedom. Two years of it previously, if bought at a higher price than that—John’s company, and his trust.

Sherlock idly changes Mycroft’s password to an unintelligible keysmash and goes back to his chair to wait. Mycroft comes back into the office and scowls when he tries to log into his laptop.

“Juvenile,” he says.

“Don’t make it so simple next time, then.”

“You realize Mary was working with Janine, yes?”

Sherlock scowls. “Yes. That’s how she gained access to the office. As I did.”

“So the nature of their relationship is no doubt clear to you?”

“Mary became friends with Janine to get closer access to Magnussen. I am certain that they quickly discovered their mutual self-interest. Janine is … extremely good at getting what she wants, and if Mary had the expertise to dispose of Magnussen, Janine would have been more than happy to help.”

Mycroft eyes him suspiciously. “Do you know what Magnussen had on Janine?”

“No idea.”

“Neither have we. Irish, moved in the last 8 years to London, worked as a secretary and then a PA. Has been Magnussen’s PA for the last 2 or so years. Hard to say if what he had on her is from her earlier life or more recently acquired, but nothing showed up in her file outside of a run-in over marijuana during Uni. Regardless, it’s not relevant at this point.”

“That’s one of the first correct things you’ve said all day. Well, it’s been fun, Mycroft, but we’re through here. John and I have quite a lot of work to do.”

“Don’t you mean you and John and Mary?” Mycroft says mildly.

Sherlock says nothing, can’t even find his way to look Mycroft in his smug face. So he picks up a small golden apple paperweight that sits on the edge of Mycroft’s desk. How appropriate, he thinks, and tosses it in the air a few times to calm his nerves. He longs to leave this room as quickly as possible, as the stifling air of responsibility and his brother’s all-too-knowing gaze is smothering him already.

“Moriarty is your focus now, Sherlock. Not whatever domestic disaster that is sure to be the Watsons’ marriage.”

“Piss off.”

“I’m warning you, Sherlock, let him find his own way in this.”

“I said _piss off_ ,” Sherlock snaps, and throws the apple across the room where it hits the concrete wall with a satisfying crack. Sherlock yanks open the door to Mycroft’s office and strides down the hall as quickly as he can, and waits, shivering, for the next car to arrive.

………………………………………………………………………………………….  
Sherlock spends the next 12 hours in deep, thought-organizing meditation in the middle of Mycroft’s solarium. Well, once he’d rearranged the furniture to his liking. The wicker basket chair is comfortable enough and the sun warms the room to an almost luxuriant temperature for January, necessary for the delicate orchids scattered about.

Between the orchids and the servants, Sherlock would swear it was the 19th century. Mycroft never has managed to drag his mind into modernity.

But it is restful, and conducive to excellent thought, so beyond the cups of tea that appear and disappear without his requesting them, a longer stretch of interruption-free focus he’s not known in quite some time.

It’s too bad, really, that nothing is coming from it. A rehash of the last three years is turning up nothing to really sink his fingers into, and his mind keeps wandering down the paths of memory instead of logic, leaving him itching to uncover whatever it was behind John Watson’s eyes the night of his marriage, that brief flash of recognition that left Sherlock’s heart thrumming and his belly warm.

Sherlock shifts in his seat. It’s useless, being here. He should disengage and wait for Moriarty to move. Because he will move, eventually, and Sherlock will then be able to pick up the thread from there.

He’s considering moving upstairs for a bath and fresh clothes and a sneak out of the window when the front door bangs open and he can hear John’s voice in the hall.

“Oh, down here, is he? I’ll just pop in. Yes, I’m allowed to be here. You know that or I’d be dead already.”

Sherlock smiles at that and opens his eyes, and the door swings open and there John is, looking around the room with a bit of a wrinkle between his eyebrows.

“Your brother’s a bit of a twat, isn’t he?” John says, and drags up another chair and drops down into it. “I don’t just mean this place, though good God. Who’s he trying to be, Mr. Darcy?”

Sherlock chuckles. “He has delusions of grandeur,” Sherlock says.

“Yeah, well. Cheers to him. Listen, we’ve got a bit of a problem.”

Sherlock sits up, all senses on full alert. “What?”

“Yeah, figures you’d not have seen the news. He’s made his move, Sherlock. Moriarty. Managed to sneak in and make a cut in the earlobes of about a dozen people last night while they were sleeping, and my guess is that they were all connected with him.”

Sherlock stares. “How on earth do you know that?”

John rubs his hand across his face. “Because Mary was one of them.”

“Why isn’t she here now?” Sherlock demands. Of all the stupid things in the universe, he needs to examine her, he needs to ask her questions. John knows this…

“Because she’s at the obstetrician’s office, having a scan. We’re checking if the baby is still sideways. Getting a bit late in the game for her not to present head down, though there’s still time.”

“You … left her to go to the doctor’s office after she was assaulted in the middle of the night by Moriarty to come here? Are you insane?”

“Don’t be so paranoid. She’s trained, for God’s sake. She’s fine.”

Sherlock notices John doesn’t actually say what it is Mary is trained in. Denial, perhaps, on John’s part, or self-protection. If he doesn’t actually say it, perhaps it doesn’t feel as real. John’s talking around the elephant in the room, the one fact neither of them wants to articulate, but Sherlock knows he must.

“She’s worked for him. That’s why she was included.” He’ll sort through who else was included in the attacks later, to look for patterns, but for now, the anger and fear burns like cold fire in his stomach. He allows it to consume him for an instant before tamping it back down.

“Yeah, she said she had, but had been planted there by the CIA. I … believe her, Sherlock. I do. I didn’t want to ask a lot of questions at that moment, but now I’m afraid we’ll have to.”

Sherlock is warmed by the use of “we,” as if it really were still the two of them, together. “Indeed. As soon as possible. Today, actually.” Sherlock stands and begins to gather his phone and some notes he’d scribbled on a napkin, but when he’s ready to go upstairs he’s surprised to find that John hasn’t moved. Is watching him, in fact, and the crease has re-formed between his eyebrows.

“Are you going to be able to leave?” John asks. “Mycroft seemed pretty insistent that you weren’t to be on your own.”

“Of course I am,” Sherlock says, and hopes the breezy tone of his response gives him the room he needs to maneuver around the truth of it— that he’ll be able to leave, but it won’t be for long, and they’ll have company following them nearly everywhere to guard the public from his menacing, murderous presence.

The frown lines around John’s mouth deepen. “Yeah, that’s what I thought you’d say. You’re just going to go along as if yesterday never happened.” John leans back in his chair and glares. “You weren’t going to tell me, were you?”

Sherlock stills, and there’s no sense in lying now that John’s managed to pin him down. “No,” he says simply.

“Mary knew. She told me last night. Said you weren’t likely to have come back, had this not happened.” John’s fist closes reflexively over the arm of the chair, and Sherlock tries to hold down the panic. He’d not foreseen this conversation: he’d expected to never see John again, and he’d convinced himself that leaving John happy and unknowing was the best thing.

“Yes. She would know the likely punishment for my crime.”

“And yet she wasn’t going to tell me, either.” John stands so abruptly Sherlock steps backward, but is still close enough to John he can see the bristle of whiskers on his cheek. John’s barely-checked frustration rolls off of him in waves, and the corners of his mouth are tight and drawn. “Why is it both of you insist on lying to me, hm? It’s really wonderful to know that the two people who supposedly love me the most in the whole world can’t trust me to be a big boy and deal with my problems!” John turns away and crosses his arms over his chest. His neck is bent, and Sherlock can see his back shift with the heaving breaths of an attempt at self-control.

“I … I didn’t want to hurt you,” Sherlock says, and the words are delicate, measured. “You’ve endured so much, and you had a chance for a home, a family, everything you want —“

John spins back to face him. “Yeah, about that, you never bother to ask me _what_ I want. I wanted _you_ , Sherlock!”

Sherlock feels like he’s been punched in the chest. “You didn’t,” he whispers. “You needed what Mary can give you. Comfort, stability—“

“I needed someone to love me! And you didn’t love me enough to stay.” The words seem to spill from him, as if he couldn’t hold them in any more. John closes his mouth quickly and looks pale, almost startled, and his eyes won’t meet Sherlock’s. He runs his fingers roughly over his hair but says nothing more, and instead turns on his heel and leaves the room.

Sherlock swallows past the lump in his throat. Considers two years of hunger and torture and loneliness, a glimpse of what could have been, and the certainty of devotion he wasn’t entirely sure it was wise to feel.

 _I didn’t know it was possible to love you more_ , he thinks, as the reverberation from the slam of the front door sets the orchids dancing.

 

 

 


	2. Chapter 2

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> _“This is a shit plan,” John announces._
> 
> _"What plan? There isn’t even a plan yet.” Sherlock says, and closes his laptop. He can feel his shoulders tense and his entire body is coiled, ready. John’s at the far end of his patience, still upset and frustrated with their earlier confrontation and Sherlock is waiting for that anger to bubble over into something more tangible. What shape that will take Sherlock isn’t sure of._

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> With thanks for excellent beta to Mydwynter and HiddenLacuna. But if there are any mistakes left that's all on me, because they're good at this beta business. <3

He is able to leave, though he’s given a car and a driver and, he’s absolutely sure, a full report via GPS straight to Mycroft’s mobile. He’s content to go along with it for the moment, as there’s nothing so innocuous and suspicious as the Costa a street away from Mary’s obstetrician’s office.

“Yes, Sherlock, I’m fine,” Mary says, slipping into a chair with a steamed vanilla milk, and Sherlock notes the perfectly straight red scab over the cut on her left earlobe. “Christ, I hate this shit. It’s at least warm, though, and better than decaf. Makes me gag.” She’s attempting casualness, a breezy self-confidence that she wraps around herself like armour, keeping the fear at bay.

Sherlock folds his hands and rests them on the table. He’s found it makes people more comfortable when they can see his hands, and Mary is no exception. He’s not got time to coddle her, though, and gets down to business.

“Tell me everything you haven’t told John,” Sherlock says.

Mary takes a sip, grimaces, and puts the cup down. “No.”

“I’m going to assume this ridiculous display is because you don’t trust me. I don’t care. I’m trying not to get you killed, and I can only do that if you tell me everything.” The young couple behind Mary startle at his last sentence and the man openly gives Sherlock a disbelieving stare. Sherlock lowers his voice. “I know, and John knows, you’re involved. You worked for him.”

Mary chews her lower lip for a moment. “Yes,” she says. “Though that’s not all there is to it.”

“Of course not. If you were disloyal, you’d be dead. You were obviously loyal enough, but something happened to make him displeased with you at the end of your association. What was it?”

Mary stares him down. It’s unsettling, a sudden shift in her expression that reminds him of the day she shot him—hard, cold, steely. “I’m not talking about it until John’s here. He deserves the chance to know, and I’ll let him decide if he wants to.”

“Oh, we’re doing honesty now. Isn’t that nice.”

Mary narrows her eyes. “As if you have room to talk.”

“I think I do, actually.”

Mary sits back in her chair and rubs a hand down her belly. She gives Sherlock an appraising look, as if she’s sizing him up, and Sherlock suddenly feels a bit wanting.

“Perhaps you do. Look, I know … well. I know how you feel about him. And I know what you did, and it was … amazing, and generous. But he’s not ready for you, Sherlock. He’s not. He’s the father of my child, and, for God knows what reason, he still loves me, and we’re making a go of it in our own mediocre fashion. Stay out of the way.”

Sherlock leans back in his chair. What does she imagine he’ll do now, after all this time? “A car will come for you at 5pm. Pack everything you might need for a few weeks, at least. Might as well use my brother’s over-developed sense of paranoia for something. You’ll have to declare your weapon at the door, but otherwise there won’t be any trouble about it.”

Mary nods, once. Sherlock is relieved, in some ways, that he doesn’t have to explain, cajole, or threaten, as he would with most other people. She can feel the danger pressing around them, understands its import, and is practical enough to take the most logical course of action to protect herself and those she loves.

Sherlock can certainly appreciate that.

………………………………………………………………………………

Sherlock is just out of the shower, wrapped in a towel and curled up on his bed sorting through messages from his homeless network when the house reverberates once again—this time announcing John Watson’s arrival instead of his exit. Sherlock smiles. Never one for subtlety is John, especially when his temper is getting the better of him. John must go back through to the kitchen, because Sherlock doesn’t hear another sound until he’s startled by John’s voice in the hall upstairs.

“Sherlock Holmes, how the hell am I supposed to find you in this goddamn place?” Sherlock hears the door of the next room open and slam closed and he scrambles to put his laptop down and cover himself. “Where the fuck are you?” Before Sherlock can even throw a blanket over his lap the door to his room swings open and there’s John, resplendent in his irritation and obviously ready to fight given the set of his shoulders under his grey woolen cardigan.

Sherlock wonders anew how someone so unassuming can wield so much power.

“This is a shit plan,” John announces.

“What plan? There isn’t even a plan yet.” Sherlock says, and closes his laptop. He can feel his shoulders tense and his entire body is coiled, ready. John’s at the far end of his patience, still upset and frustrated with their earlier confrontation and Sherlock is waiting for that anger to bubble over into something more tangible. What shape that will take Sherlock isn’t sure of.

John paces in front of the bed: oblivious, it seems, to Sherlock’s semi-nude state. “You want to lock us away in this house like a prison! Keep us all safe like little dolls. I’m going with it because Mary’s so close to delivering and I don’t want to leave her alone. She’s barely able to get out of a chair without help. The fact she agrees that she’s too vulnerable to be on her own scares me to death but I swear, Sherlock, if you refuse to let me help on this case I will _murder you in your bed_ and save Moriarty the trouble.”

Sherlock is relieved. John’s desire is only natural, completely logical, and precisely what Sherlock himself would expect. He’s still got his gun at the small of his back, the pressure against his spine making him stand taller, broader, and the lines around his eyes have deepened with the hard edges of purpose.

Sherlock slides off the bed and holds the towel around his waist. John’s expression flickers, just a tiny twitch, as Sherlock comes nearer, but otherwise he doesn’t move. Sherlock can’t help himself; he knows he’s looming—he’s so close he can see every missed whisker on John’s jaw and the fine blonde fan of his eyelashes. The draw of him when he’s like this, when he’s practically vibrating with the call to action, is too strong. John closes his eyes and takes a deep breath, and Sherlock imagines John must be feeling the warm, damp air from Sherlock’s own skin. It’s exhilarating, and dangerous, and he knows he’s pushing a bit too far when John sways ever-so-slightly toward him.

Sherlock’s fingers itch to touch, but the closest he gets is the subtle brush of John’s sleeve against his forearm, the fabric tickling the hair and making Sherlock’s skin prickle with gooseflesh.

“I’d never expect you to do anything else,” Sherlock murmurs, and turns to the closet to pull out a suit and shirt. He hears John release a pent up breath.

“I’m not going to be a pawn in this game, Sherlock,” John says, and a moment later the door closes behind him. As Sherlock pulls on his clothes he wonders if his heart might survive this case, much less his body.

……………………………………………………………………….

Sherlock finds John and Mary huddled around the kitchen table, picking at seed cake and nursing cups of tea. A less intimate setting for this conversation would be better, but Sherlock doesn’t have the patience to waffle about, so he yanks a chair out from the table, startling them both, and drops down into it.

“I think it’s completely clear from the attack upon your person and your lack of surprise or confusion at it, and the fact you willingly and without reservation have moved yourself and your husband into this house, under the protection of my brother of all people, that you have, in the past, worked for Jim Moriarty in a capacity that has led him to wish to make you pay dearly for that association. I need details: times, places, connections.” Neither John nor Mary seem put off by his demands or seem as though they’re going to leave the table in a huff, so he continues. “You’ve obviously informed John of this, and of our previous conversation. So he’s planning to stay and hear the entire thing. Well done, John, knew you’d come around.”

That look, that rather frustrated, impatient look has replaced the worry on John’s face, but his voice is icily calm. “Well, it matters now, doesn’t it? It matters, and if knowing all of this will help find out what’s going on and how to stop it, then okay. Fine.” John levels a look at Sherlock that has the hair on the back of his neck standing on end. “And you will stop it, Sherlock. I know the level of resources you’ve got at your command this time, I know who’s involved and who’s interested in the outcome. So none of your obnoxious games, no flitting around with that all-knowing look you get while leaving everyone else in the dark. We’re all in this together, and we’re all going to have to be honest with each other for once. Lay it all out on the table. There’s no other way.”

Mary glances at Sherlock, just a quick flash of her eyes to lock with his for an instant, and Sherlock remembers the heat of John’s breath against the bare skin of his chest and he resolves to keep himself better under control.

“If you two could please just stop acting like a couple of obnoxious children, I’m the one who had an up close and personal encounter that I’d very much like to be a solitary occurrence,” Mary says. “John, I’m not ignoring what you just said, but are you absolutely sure you’re ready to hear this?”

John nods and rubs his hand across his forehead. “I think I’d rather know it and you be alive to shout at about it, honestly,” John says, and they smile at each other. Sherlock barely restrains himself from rolling his eyes.

“Okay, then.” Mary, unconsciously, pushes her chair away from the table just slightly, giving herself distance from the both of them. “I’ll start by saying I actually am British, Sherlock, so null points for you on that. I emigrated with my parents to America when I was eight.”

Sherlock crosses his arms over his chest, but otherwise holds his tongue.

“I was recruited early, almost right out of high school. I spent a semester at Columbia and a semester at Langley, alternating every year. When I graduated, I owed them 4 years for paying for my education.” Mary pauses, glances at John and, seeing him smile encouragingly, continues. “I was going to be a field agent. Well, I _was_ a field agent, until my marksmanship scores caught the attention of the brass.”

Her accent, the natural rhythms of her native Cornwall smoothed over with two decades of living in America, is starting to make itself more obvious as she speaks. She’s among people she trusts enough to allow herself some nostalgia; Sherlock is infinitely grateful for John’s sake that the wariness she’d put on as soon as Sherlock caught her in Magnussen’s office is starting to recede once again.

“I was set up as a sniper, trained and sent on assignments to…parts of the world you’d flinch at, but for all that, I was still able to at least know in my heart I was fulfilling a mission of necessity. Until I was sent to London in 2008 to meet with James Moriarty.”

Sherlock leans forward, and notes that John does as well. Sherlock sits back in an attempt not to seem too eager.

“We’d been watching him for a while, and it seems that someone had the boneheaded idea of trying to recruit him for our side. His network, his contacts were so vast he could find or eliminate anyone. I was to help him with that task. In essence, I was on loan to him. I was to do what jobs I was given, in return for access to that network to complete missions for my boss. It was all very quid pro quo.” Mary’s laugh is bitter, strained. John looks almost shocked, and Mary refuses to look up from the table.

“There is no possible way Mycroft could have known this,” Sherlock says. “He’d never have allowed it.”

“Oh, no, no one knew, save two or three people at the very highest levels. Your brother knows who I am but he doesn’t know the entire story. Well,” she says, with a rueful laugh and a glance up at the ceiling where numerous cameras are no doubt recording their every word, “he will now. Hello, Mycroft.” She waves, and Sherlock has a chuckle at his brother’s expense. “Anyway, that’s where I met Magnussen.”

“Magnussen?” John asks “He was involved with Moriarty? Christ, how far down the rabbit hole does this go?”

Mary finally turns to look at John. “Farther than you can imagine. But think about this: how do you think Richard Brook was put into every paper, every website, every bit of rather convincing media he showed? How do you think he was able to access television stations and satellites and cell networks? Through Magnussen. And in return, he gave what he knew about people, how to pressure them, who they were and who they were connected with. It was a business relationship that worked incredibly well for both of them.”

“So that’s how Magnussen found out about you. God, of course, I should have seen it earlier.” Sherlock sits up in his chair. This is brilliant; all of the threads that he knew were there as part of Moriarty’s network suddenly have at least one nexus he can start from…

“—and that’s also how I met Janine,” Sherlock hears, and his brain quickly stops its connections and refocuses.

“Janine. Explain.”

Mary stares at him, and her gaze has taken on that clear, knowing quality that it had earlier. “She was Moriarty’s PA,” she says.

“Jesus Christ,” John says, and the words burst from him like water breaking a dam. “The both of you, working for Moriarty! How the _hell_ did we not see this, Sherlock? How did you not see it when you came back? For God’s sake you damn near got engaged to her—she had to have told you something!”

“I didn’t care enough to find out that much about her!” Sherlock retorts. “It didn’t matter what she had been, I only needed what she was, which was Magnussen’s PA. And now we know why she was there.”

“He used her connection with Moriarty against her,” Mary says quietly, ignoring John’s outburst. “She’d moved on after Moriarty’s death, until he showed up at her flat one day and offered her an obscene amount of money to work for him. She had tried to say no, but he’d made it clear that for that money, and for his silence, he owned her.”

“That’s disgusting,” John says, and Sherlock shakes his head. John’s moral outrage over injustice to another will usually trump his outrage over injustice to himself. That ability to empathise, his generosity, has always amazed Sherlock. It’s generosity he doesn’t have time for, as a general rule, and would mock for weakness in anyone but John.

“So you were friends, before,” Sherlock says.

“No, not exactly. Acquaintances. I’d see her at the office, if I had to come in. ‘How’s your day, planning anything fun at the weekend’ sort of thing. I’d tried to keep track of where everyone ended up when Moriarty … died,” Mary throws a significant glance at Sherlock. “It was like rats escaping a sinking ship. I wasn’t too worried about any of them, but Janine… when I found out she’d ended up at Magnussen’s, I knew it couldn’t have been by her own choice. She hated him. Creeped her out, she told me.”

Sherlock huffs. He’s been so blind on this case, only focusing on the big fish and allowing all the little fishes to scatter before him. “So you contacted her again once Magnussen had a bead on you, and you decided to form an alliance, all culminating the night she let you upstairs. You both knew full well that I was also investigating Magnussen, but based on how quickly the entire plan went awry neither of you expected us that night. Janine told you we were on the way up, so you quickly arranged the staged attack, knocked her cold, and were planning to shoot Magnussen and be out the door before we got there. But something went completely wrong, didn’t it?”

Mary pauses, doesn’t say a word, but her hands are clenched white-knuckled around a napkin. “I flinched,” Mary finally says, throwing her hands out in frustration. “I flinched and waited too long.”

“But you could obviously shoot Sherlock, no problem there,” John mutters darkly.

“I didn’t want to, John, I explained that already,” she says, and her voice is hard-edged with the impatience of an argument that’s gone on too long. “It was the best outside plan I could think of at the time. And he’s not dead. He’s fine.”

“Barely,” John says. “I know that he died on the table, Mary. He did, and all you needed to have done was walk out and Sherlock never would have said a word. But you didn’t, and here we are.”

Sherlock runs his hands through his hair, ignores the twinge from his bullet scar when he does so, and puts himself into the middle of the massive row he can feel brewing and slices through the tension.

“None of this explains why Moriarty is after you now,” Sherlock says. “He intends to get to me, that much is obvious, but he seems to have chosen to also mark people who are simply connected with him in some way.”

Mary and John are still pointedly not looking at each other, and Mary shifts in her chair and runs her hand down her belly again. The child must be moving, with the way she grimaces occasionally. “I got out,” she says. “I got out completely and he couldn’t do a thing about it, and he knew it. Unless it was to have me killed or something, but that wasn’t his style. He wanted me back to work, not dead, and I wasn’t having it. I eventually went under, and I thought he had never found me. I thought I was safe, that he was dead. It seems I was wrong about that.”

John pushes back from the table. The strain of the last half-hour is evident in his face, and Sherlock knows that now isn’t the time for the sort of weakness he himself is starting to feel whenever he allows himself to focus on John for more than a few moments at a time. John stands to pace the length of the kitchen floor and back before pausing next to the table.

“Looks like we were all wrong about a lot of things,” he says, and turns to walk out toward the solarium. Mary slumps forward and rests her forehead on her hands, and Sherlock feels a spark of sympathy.

“He’ll come around,” he says, but in his heart of hearts, he’s not sure he really believes it.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 


	3. Chapter 3

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> _“We belong together, you and I,” John says. “I can’t explain it. I’ve never tried to, and I don’t think I should. But I know that much.”_

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Sorry it's been so long getting this to you, but life has a way of making other plans. <3
> 
> All the love to the patient and wonderful combo of Mydwynter and HiddenLacuna, who not only beta'd this story, but dealt with the every-few-months desperate begging to look at some ridiculous change I made.

That evening, Sherlock is sitting on his bed compiling lists of information regarding Moriarty’s most recent victims when John taps on the open door and then hesitates in the doorway.

Sherlock spent five hours that afternoon rattling information out of every contact in London he had, and the list of people, from tailors to drivers to gardeners to assassins, each with a mark on their ear, reads like an unbroken contract that Moriarty has now signed in blood.

_I own you._

So deciding what happens next, how to focus his energy, is paramount. Sherlock finds the distraction of John’s presence flays his nerves and sparks like fire down his spine.

“What?” he snaps.

“Fuck you too,” John says. “I wasn’t going to disturb you but I think I will, now.”

Sherlock blows out a breath and gestures to his computer screen. “It’s only a matter of time until someone ends up dead. The trick is figuring out _who.”_

John scowls. “Wait long enough and we’ll find out,” he says, dark humour twisting the corner of his mouth.

Sherlock tries to ignore the unsettled feeling it gives him—the almost-implication that he’s not quite working quickly enough nags. “Well. Be that as it may, until we can find a way to either draw Moriarty out or follow back into the centre of his web, I’m afraid there’s little I can do now but set a watch on every single one of these people and see what we can turn up. And that also means one of us should be with Mary every time she sets foot outside of this house.”

“She’ll hate that.”

“Of course she’ll hate it. We’ll all hate it. But it’s necessary. Where is she now?”

“Sleeping. She’s pretty exhausted these days.”

Sherlock nods offhandedly and sorts his file by occupation, then date of birth, birth location, age, sex, years in Moriarty’s service, debts, income, and marital status. None of it gives him a flicker of a pattern, and he slaps the screen closed with disgust and rubs his eyes.

John smiles fondly. “Looks like she’s not the only one. How long has it been since you slept?”

Sherlock thinks. “About 40 hours, I think. Maybe a bit longer.” He feels his spine pop as he stretches. He couldn’t possibly sleep now, not when there’s so much stake, and so very much he needs to do.

“You should see the circles under your eyes,” John says, and reaches for Sherlock’s wrist to take his pulse. Sherlock flinches when John’s fingers brush his skin; the warm weight of his fingertips seems to melt into Sherlock’s bones.

“75,” John announces. “A touch high, for you. You should rest.”

“Sleep is for the weak,” Sherlock says, and feels his mobile vibrate in his pocket.

“And the dead,” John retorts. “You’re impossible. I’ll be calling up the clinic, trying to save what’s left of my job. If we ever get out of this, that is.”

Sherlock snorts and surreptitiously rubs his wrist along the top of his leg. “Of course we will. Just a thread, John. That’s all it will take.”

John bites his lip and perches on the edge of the bed, his hip mere inches from Sherlock’s sock feet.

“This is going to be bad, isn’t it?” He says. “Worse than any time you’ve dealt with him before. If that’s even possible.”

“Yes, I believe so.”

“I can’t say why I feel that way, though.”

“Because he’s marshaling his forces, bringing all of his stray charges back into the fold. I’m not entirely sure what to expect of him, but if we can find him now, get ahead of him while he’s still slightly weakened and without his usual resources, we might have a chance to stop it.”

“He knew where Mary was. And that means he knows we know. Er. Something like that.”

“Only a few of the attacks were on the news. Others weren’t. I’ve found at least a dozen that were kept quiet. I expect that was the wisest course.”

John sighs. “Yeah. Likely.” He picks at the edge of the ridiculous flocked blue duvet as Sherlock watches him. He’s clearly got something on his mind.

John finally straightens his shoulders and looks up to meet Sherlock’s eyes. “I meant what I said earlier. Don’t do this alone. Last time you cut me out, and … I don’t want to even think about it. The two of us against the rest of the world, remember?” He puts on a weak smile, trying for lightness, for calm, but Sherlock feels the seriousness of John’s words in the hollow of his gut.

So Sherlock nods, tries to cast about for something to say that would be the most convincing, comfortable, when John reaches out and rests a hand along Sherlock’s shin.

To Sherlock, time simply stops existing, the heat of John’s hand traveling straight to his heart and setting it fluttering.

“We belong together, you and I,” John says. “I can’t explain it. I’ve never tried to, and I don’t think I should. But I know that much.”

Sherlock isn’t sure if he’s saying what it sounds like he’s saying, but the words wind their way around Sherlock’s heart and find rest in his soul. _We belong together, you and I._ He tries and fails to find the words to answer, but when he looks up from John’s hand resting on his leg and meets John’s eyes ( _Dear God how long had he been staring at John’s hand_ ), the gentle smile John gives him before patting his leg and leaving the room must mean his silence is answer enough.

…………………………………………………………..

It’s four o’clock in the morning, and Sherlock is still staring at the ceiling.

_Off-white, plaster, repaired twice, and showing signs of the same water leak that’s been plaguing it for years._

He can’t sleep, and he can’t stop imagining what might have happened if John had slid his hand a bit further up Sherlock’s leg, and Sherlock is determined to ignore with every fibre of his being the way blood throbs in his groin at that because John Watson is _married_ and is becoming a _father_ and there is a madman out there ready to kill them all at the slightest opportunity and Sherlock knows his priorities are really, really skewed when he realizes that Jim Moriarty is the least of his worries.

But it is a worry. It’s been almost 24 hours since the ear-cutting attacks and he isn’t entirely sure what’s next. Sherlock rolls over onto his side and crumples the pillow up under his head until he’s somewhat comfortable. Even if he does manage to solve this case and put Moriarty in prison, who’s to say that it won’t require another around-the-world chase, or desperate bargaining, or sacrifice, or even actual death, this time? He was prepared before, Moriarty leaving little breadcrumbs for him to follow but underestimating just how ahead of Moriarty’s game Sherlock actually was. Moriarty is weakened, that much Sherlock is certain of, and it affords him a bit of leeway.

Because Sherlock’s off-balance, a bit wary and still punch-drunk with the certainty of John Watson’s affections. John’s feelings on this case matter. He wants to be involved, wants Sherlock to stay and not leave (him?) this time. And yet, Sherlock didn’t throw himself from a rooftop and disappear for two years only to allow John to put himself in harm’s way at the slightest provocation.

It’s a very pretty problem, indeed.

And one he’s still ruminating on at 6am when his phone chimes with an incoming text from Lestrade:

_Have a man in A &E with a severed thumb, making accusations about M and a money press?_

…………………………………………………………………………………

Sherlock watches John in the dark quiet of the cab. He’d attempted to rouse John but not Mary; the fact that John sleeps like the dead and Mary is a trained military assassin had worked against him and he’d found himself staring directly into her eyes as he cracked open the door to their room. She’d said nothing; simply narrowed her eyes at him until he showed her the text. She’d promptly elbowed John in the back until he’d startled awake. Mary glared at Sherlock until he stepped back out and closed the door—but not quickly enough to avoid knowing for a fact that John was sleeping nude.

Sherlock sighs and tries not to fidget at the memory, turning to watch John instead. Times like this leave John so miraculously still – not unaware, just quietly and unwaveringly alert. Sherlock finds it marvelous. John’s breath leaves a frost of fog on the window, and Sherlock knows that this, the feeling of an emptiness filled, is the result of this man, content to be by his side in the chill of the dawn.

………………………………………………………………………………..

“His _thumb_ was hacked off with an _axe_ ,” John says, and the tone of flat incredulity echoes in the quiet cubicle at A&E.

“Found him near Paddington—people on the train called when they noticed the blood and he’d collapsed near the pavement before we got to him,” Lestrade says, from near the door. “Brought him here. Blood loss and shock, mostly. It’s a wonder he didn’t pass out on the train. But anyway, he wasn’t making a whole lot of sense when they brought him in, just a few words here and there. Heard the M word, so I knew I needed to drop you a text.”

Sherlock doesn’t respond, simply takes in everything he can about the man lying asleep on the narrow hospital bed in front of him. He flips open the police report and skims it quickly. Victor Hatherley is young—barely 27—fit, clean-shaven, hard-working, and single. Previously an engineer with Ovalway Hydraulics until downsized 4 years ago, then took an on-call staff position for a private company called Clay Analytics before leaving suddenly for unknown reasons. Recently started his own consulting business. He drinks more than he should and spends more than he has, but if Sherlock had to put it all on balance, he’d say Mr. Hatherley falls on the side that most people would call decent.

He also has lightning-fast reflexes, because when John accidentally bumps the side of the bed while leaning to get a better look at the white gauze over the area that had been his thumb, Hatherley startles awake and has John’s wrist in the white-knuckled grip of his good hand in a flash. John jumps back and pulls his arm free, and Hatherley seems to shake himself further awake before laying back against his pillows with a shaky sigh.

“Jesus Christ who the hell are you?” he says, breathing heavily, the monitors chiming a staccato rhythm of his elevated heartrate. “You shouldn’t sneak up on people in hospital like that.”

Sherlock is about to explain when Hatherley turns his head to look at John, Sherlock sees the dark-red scab of a an incision on his left earlobe, and the scale of Sherlock’s earlier evaluation tips back. Perhaps not so decent, after all, and Sherlock frowns. Victor Hatherley isn’t on his list. John sees the injury as well, and catches Sherlock’s eye. His expression has gone slightly wary and his posture tense, and Sherlock stands at the end of the bed.

“I’m Sherlock Holmes and this is John Watson. And you’d be best served by telling us exactly what happened to you last night.”

Hatherley takes a long drink of water. He looks slightly ashen, as if recalling the events of the previous evening were enough to drain him of blood all on their own.

“Yeah, okay, I guess it’s probably fine. I mean, I’ve lost my thumb already, so what else could happen? Right?”

Sherlock very pointedly exchanges an eloquent glance with John.

“Exactly,” John says to Hatherley, and nods. “Telling us is probably the best idea, really. I mean, you’re safe here. There’s a police officer and everything.”

Sherlock tries not to snort at John’s “encouragement.”

So Hatherley does. He spins them a tale of a late night request for engineering consulting services, driven to the location blindfolded in the dead of night, and discovering that what was billed to him as an underground revolutionary newspaper was, in reality, a counterfeiting operation.

“I know you must be thinking I’m touched, but the fee was almost double, and my sister’s been on me about helping with the flat.” Hatherley looks down at his lap and twiddles the edge of his blanket. “But anyway, this bloke Stark, he wants me to look at this press. Says it’s for printing a sort of … underground newspaper, a way to be off the grid, whatever. But I get a look, and it’s obviously not—the pressure required is much too high to start with and its completely the wrong setup—so when Stark leaves the room for a minute I peek under the shroud they’ve got draped around the top. They’ve actually got a press, sure, but it’s for printing sheets of notes, not for newspapers. I can hear Stark in the hall, so I put the shroud back on as quick as I can.”

“I guess I wasn’t quick enough. Stark sees that I figured out what the real story is, and he goes ballistic. Picks up this hatchet that was leaning against the wall and tells me that I’m in for it, that I was too bloody nosy for my own good. I try to tell him I’m not going to say anything because seriously, I don’t even care. I just want to get out of there. So he keeps threatening and I’m starting to panic, and when the other guy, Ferguson, comes back in, he sees what’s going on and tries to hold him back. I dive for the window, open it up, and out I go. I’m on the first floor so it’s not that long a drop, but I slide out and hang from the sill, and then there’s Stark’s face in the window and the hatchet, and then something hits me, and I black out. Next thing I know I wake up in the garden. I’m bleeding and, and just feeling _sick_ , and I make a run for it before anything else happens. I made it to the train, but after that, its all a bit fuzzy.”

Sherlock wonders if he, at any point of his life, would have been so desperate for funds that he would have ever willingly walked into so obvious a ruse. On the whole, he thinks not. He bites his tongue on the criticism, though, and instead carefully talks Hatherley through the trip from his flat to the house—the turns, the time, the approximate sources of light, if he could remember, and anything he might have remembered on his way to the train station. It’s a bit complex, but the mental map he’s started is enough to get him more than halfway there. He stands up and strides to the door. John pulls on his jacket and tucks his notebook away, but before they leave, Sherlock needs to know one thing. One thing that’s been niggling him since they arrived.

“Mr. Hatherley, just one more question. Where exactly caused you to leave your position at Clay Analytics in the middle of a terrible economy to strike out on your own?”

“Ah,” Hatherley says, and glances away from Sherlock’s face. People always seem to think that somehow that will hide their secrets, even when it never does. “Well, when I was let go, I sort of was at loose ends for a few months. I’d been getting benefits but catching a lot of heat about how the job search was going, you know how it goes. And I’m in the pub, just having a bit of a drink to keep my mind off of things, when a man approached me.

“He said he’d pay me forty-five thousand pounds a year to be on staff of a consulting company and the only stipulation was I had to be on call twenty-four-seven.”

“What, you mean all the time, every day?” John asks.

“Yeah, all the time. I mean, I was young, I didn’t have a family or hell, even a girlfriend. Seemed a pretty enough deal, all together. And it was. For a while. Until one night, kind of late, I was working a bit on a horizontal drill rig— those big machines that push fibre cable and whatnot?—and I went up to my boss with a question. I was walking past the corridor between the workshop and the office and saw some poor bloke being led around the back all tied up with a bag on his head.”

“Any idea who?”

“No, and I’m not stupid enough to ask questions. I just got what I wanted and went back to work. But a month later I told them I had an offer in London, and I packed up and got down here quick as I could. I’ve lived with my sister ever since. She’s about to throw me out, though,” Hatherley adds ruefully.

“And they just…let you leave?” John asks, incredulous. “I’d have thought they’d want to be sure you wouldn’t go to the police.”

“They probably didn’t realize he’d seen,” Sherlock says. “Otherwise they would have been much more thorough. Who was your boss, Victor?”

“John Clay. But see, they did try to get me to stay on. I was called into a meeting with the big boss, after I’d given my notice. Just to try to change my mind, he said. Perhaps I’d like a better salary. Didn’t work, though.”

Sherlock feels his heart quicken and glances at John. John looks as eager to hear the story as Sherlock himself is.

“And he was?” Sherlock asks, and tries to keep calm.

“Well, I didn’t know it until later, but it was that Moriarty, the man you’d supposedly framed. Jim Moriarty. He cut my ear, I know it.” Hatherley’s eyes fill with tears, and he tries to hide them behind a swipe of his good hand before fixing Sherlock with a terrified look. “He’s coming for me.”

………………………………………………………………………………………………….

“I’m not all that surprised, to be honest,” John says, as Sherlock strides through the hospital corridors, aware of John fighting to keep up. “You don’t just...quit working for Moriarty.”

“Mary did.”

John pauses. “Yeah, but she was better able to defend herself, you know? I mean, this bloke’s just some engineer. He’s lucky he’s still alive as it is!”

“They’re useful. He wants them alive to continue to be so. He has loads of people who can help him. So why these people specifically? People who managed, somehow, to disentangle themselves from his web. A warning? Perhaps. But how is he finding them?” Sherlock pauses for a moment, so abruptly John almost walks past him, and antiseptic smell of the hospital, the low hum of chatter from various rooms, fades into the background, dropping a veil of silence around his mind.

It’s there, right there, just waiting for his brain to tease it all out. Someone knows where all of these people are to be found, how to best get to them. Someone who’s been in London, who has kept track of all the little fish. Sherlock shakes his head in frustration. This needs time, and distance, and quiet meditation. Gradually Sherlock becomes aware of John standing next to him, waiting patiently as he always does for Sherlock to reemerge from his own mind.

“Anything interesting come of that?” John asks, and the little half-smile on his face edges on … fond? Sherlock can’t be sure, but it makes his heart judder in his chest.

“Not as yet. I can’t waste my time on it now. We need to find that house Hatherley was brought to before anything of value is cleared away.”

……………………………………………………………………..

In the end, it takes Sherlock much longer to find Hatherley’s printing operation than he’d have liked. Two hours reviewing the map of London while sitting on a bench in the park while John sat in a café across the street. Sherlock had been watching him grow more and more disgruntled, casting longing looks at every restaurant they’d passed. Sherlock resolutely ignored him until finally, around 11 o’clock, he’d given in and waved John into the next reasonable place John had shown an interest in and given himself over to thought on a the hard wooden bench with the fewest bird droppings on it.

If he squints hard, he can see the blond smudge of John’s hair through the front window. He should have stayed inside. It’s cold out and he could use a coffee. But he stays put and resolutely ignores the January wind buffeting through his hair. When John joins him, he’s made enough progress untangling Hatherley’s meandering, half-remembered recollections that he feels at least he has a bit of a starting point.

“Bromley?” John asks, dropping onto the bench next to him. “I thought you said he lived in Croydon. He was in the car for over an hour.” Yes, with the addition of kippers, eggs, and beans on toast, John’s mood has definitely improved. It’s not that Sherlock doesn’t notice when it’s bad, it’s just so rare that he can do anything about it, really. Mostly because he’s usually the cause thereof.

“He was driven almost in a circle,” Sherlock says, and holds his hand up for a cab. “The number of right turns vs. left turns make that fairly clear. And the train he came in on was from that direction –—he hadn’t changed. Based on a few landmarks, we can find the house within an hour or so, if we work backwards from the station in South Bromley.”

John looks incredulous but keeps up with Sherlock’s long strides until, as dusk is falling, they stand in front of the rusty iron gate set in a head-height brick wall around the winter-dead garden that Hatherley described. The house is a big Victorian, tall and narrow, and all of the windows are blocked with shades. The single light on the front stoop casts a weak, pale smudge of light over the worn stone steps, edging tiny shapeless shadows onto the front walk.

Sherlock looks up. Three storeys and too far to drop from the second floor and survive as uninjured as Hatherley was. The first, then. He looks at the gate —locked, with a new-that-day padlock and chain – and realizes the wall is just low enough he can climb it. John, on the other hand, will need a hand up.

He could just go over himself, but he knows the consequences for leaving John behind.

“Come on, up,” he says, and locks his fingers together to provide a makeshift step. John, ever trusting and stalwart John, simply puts his foot in Sherlock’s hands and lets Sherlock launch him up and over the bricks. Sherlock takes two steps back before jumping up and catching the top of the wall himself and half-pulling, half-climbing himself over the top. He lands in the garden with a thump, brushes off his hands, looks down at the state of his coat and sighs.

John snorts a laugh, the one where it’s obvious Sherlock is being patently ridiculous. “I don’t know why you never seem to expect that to happen. It always does.” John reaches out to brush more dried leaves and dirt from Sherlock’s lapel, and the weight of his hand only compounds the heightened sense of awareness from their bit of trespassing. Dead leaves crunch underfoot as he shifts forward, pressing John’s hand further into his chest. It’s a dangerous bit of escalation, he knows, but delicious all the same. John simply gives him a smirk and turns toward the house, making a show of scanning the window ledges. Sherlock clears his throat and pulls out a tiny pen-sized torch from the tool kit in his inside coat pocket, and starts having a look at the window sills. John does the same on the opposite side of the front door.

The house is obviously being used, and in better repair than the state of the garden would suggest. Sherlock is fairly sure no one is living there, though the wear against the front door indicates people come and go regularly.

Sherlock crouches low to inspect the sickly shrubs under the window. This is not where Hatherley fell, obviously, as they’re all still intact, if a bit weedy looking.

“Sherlock,” John hisses, and motions him over. He points with his torch at the shrubs on his side of the house, and here they’re twisted and broken, the bright edges of new wood gleaming in the light. Sherlock can see wisps of fabric from Hatherley’s clothes attached to the broken ends, the dark smudge of blood on the bare soil, and then, sickeningly, the pale white skin of Hatherley’s thumb, lying under the windowsill.

“Oh God,” John says, and reaches into his pocket for a latex glove. “I’m starting to get rather tired of hacked-off limbs, you know? Why can’t it be a tricky bit of oddball robbery once in a while, just for the variety?”

“Well, I’m sure if we manage to solve this case we’ll have our choice of work afterward,” Sherlock says. He looks up once again to scan the house, and catches the dark smear of bloodstains on the edge of the rightmost first floor window ledge. He’s about to suggest they sidle around the back for a spot of impromptu actual housebreaking when there’s a whisper of movement within and the front door bangs open and a big, beefy hulk of a man with graying stubble runs out onto the stoop.

“Who the fuck are you?” he demands, and Sherlock can see the gleam of a knife in his hand.

Sherlock doesn’t even think, just turns to run and trusts that John does the same. They reach the wall at the same time and Sherlock stoops to give John a hand. John vaults to the top as if he’d done it every day of his life, balances precariously along the bricks to crouch and give Sherlock a hand up, and they both hit the ground running, dodging traffic and pedestrians with nimble alacrity.

They’re quick but Sherlock can still hear the pounding of shoes on the pavement behind him, so he dodges into an alley, around the next corner, and shoves John ahead of him into the small set of basement stairs attached to the building they find themselves behind. The shadows of early dusk still lurk in the alleys and byways, a concealing gloom that puts them at an advantage.

John gets to the bottom of the stairs and instinctively crouches so he’s below street level. Sherlock flips his collar up, pulls his arms out from his coat sleeves and covers them both. They’re leaning against the dank, dirty bricks and the huff of their combined breath is hot and damp under the veil of Sherlock’s coat.

They dare not speak, not when Sherlock can hear echoing footsteps from above, and he wills himself to breathe steadily even with his nose buried in John’s hair.

John shifts in his crouch and Sherlock can feel heat against his neck - John’s nose, pressed lightly into the hollow under his jaw now, and his quick intake of breath couldn’t be mistaken for anything other than a gasp. Sherlock swallows heavily.

The footsteps slow, a measured tap, tap, tap on the pavement; the off-rhythm step of a man who’d broken a leg in childhood, who doesn’t have the fine muscle control to walk on his toes to keep his hard-soled shoes silent, who, by the rate of his breathing, is about ready to give up the chase. Sherlock crouches lower and tries not to breathe. John slowly exhales, and goes still and quiet as death. Sherlock envies his ability to do that.

They wait a painful, drawn-out eternity. And then Sherlock hears the crunch of grit under a shoe as the man turns, and an oath as he walks away.

“I … I think he’s gone,” Sherlock whispers, John’s hair tickling his lips.

“You’re sure?” John asks, and Sherlock can feel the weight of John’s hand on his knee as he balances on his toes.

“He went to the right, as is the habit of right-handed individuals. He’ll have given it up and gone back to the house.”

Sherlock slowly pulls his coat back until he can see John’s eyes in the dim, orange streetlights. The intensity of John’s gaze settles heavily in Sherlock’s gut, and the burn of adrenaline leaves him lightheaded.

“We should call Lestrade,” John murmurs, but his gaze is on Sherlock’s mouth.

“We should.”

John takes a deep breath and steps back with a crooked smile. “Call him and I’ll get a cab,” he says.

Sherlock can’t call, but he forces his shaking fingers to text the information they’d found to Lestrade, and follows John into the cab he manages to flag down around the corner.

Sherlock throws himself into the back seat and leans his head back against the headrest with a thump. His heart is hammering, still, and John seems tense, his body almost vibrating. They almost can’t look at each other until they both manage to catch each other’s gaze and grin, and Sherlock can feel the electric heat of it down to his toes.

“Where to?” the cabbie asks.

They both turn and, in unison, give him the address.

“221 Baker Street.”

……………………………………………………………………………

Sherlock knows they both crave it, the quiet, familiar solitude of their (his) rooms to come down after the dizzying high of their adventure. Sherlock asks the cabbie to drop them off around the corner on the Marylebone Road, edging them through one of the last blind spots in Mycroft’s surveillance network to the rear of the building. Sherlock and John slip through the back garden gate in the early gloom of night, John keeping watch as Sherlock quietly fishes his keys from his pocket. The solitary cat that lives around their bins barely registers their presence, but it wouldn’t do to be too long, given the increased level of scrutiny the house is currently under.

They quietly edge along the small corridor and slink their way up the staircase, John’s presence a tangible weight at Sherlock’s back. They might have an hour or two of freedom if they’re lucky, before Mycroft’s chastising minions come to collect them. He can’t face it now, Mycroft’s elegant prison. He misses the freedom of Baker Street, and the exhilaration of John running beside him again fills him with longing for the life they could have had.

But he is still ready to accept this, the second (third?) chance at their friendship, even if the sweet, heady promise of more is tantalizingly close, if impossible to reach. Sherlock slips through the door to the sitting room first; the smell of books and papers and dust and _home_ fills his nostrils and the adrenaline still sings in his veins, and his cheeks ache with a grin.

He turns to hang his coat on the hook and John continues along until he stops by his chair, returned to pride of place in the sitting room. He fiddles with the copy of Scientific American Sherlock has draped over the back of it for a moment before he slides his coat off as well and drops it over the arm.

The silence feels tangible, a weight Sherlock can feel pressing on his chest, his ears. “We should have a drink,” he says, because he must do something before the balance of their relationship is irrevocably tilted, before the pull of John’s heart drags him down into an abyss from which he will never return. He makes it as far as the kitchen before John has a hand on his arm. He gently tugs Sherlock around until they’re facing each other with barely breathing space between them. John’s gaze is intent, heated, and in an instant John crowds him back against the worktop and holds him there with one hand on Sherlock’s hip and one cupped around the back of his neck. His lips, his mouth, press to Sherlock’s own in a kiss that shakes Sherlock to the core, lights every nerve ending.

“You weren’t coming back,” John says, and every word is mumbled against Sherlock’s lips. “You weren’t coming back and I need this, I want-“ John stops, kisses Sherlock again. His mouth is unyielding, almost hard against Sherlock’s lips, his kisses both plea and punishment for transgressions both real and yet to come. Sherlock desperately grasps onto _husband_ and _father_ and _not ready_ , but when John grips his hip more firmly Sherlock feels his heart split down the middle and spill love like blood, necessary and inevitable and pledging forever.

 

 

 

 

 


	4. Chapter 4

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Their kiss goes on and on. Sherlock feels underwater, like he’s drowning, the air in his lungs slowly replaced by a shimmering, liquid heat. His focus narrows to nothing but sensation: John’s lips on his neck, the press of hands, John’s jumper tangled in his clutching fingers.
> 
> He wants.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thanks beyond measure to a cadre of lovely people who made sure I was on the right track after so long away from this story. I may or may not have taken all of your advice, but your input was valuable and your support so necessary: Esterbrook, Ravenmorganleigh, Mycapeisplaid (who did some beta), and BakerStMel (who also ran beta). <333

Their kiss goes on and on. Sherlock feels underwater, like he’s drowning, the air in his lungs slowly replaced by a shimmering, liquid heat.  His focus narrows to nothing but sensation: John’s lips on his neck, the press of hands, John’s jumper tangled in his clutching fingers.

He wants. 

Sherlock tries to press back, to grasp this singular opportunity before it slips through his fingers like smoke. Perhaps it’s just a moment, nothing more, catalyzed by jolt of adrenaline and the feel of danger pressing all around them. But when he tries to step forward and deepen John’s sliding, wet kisses, John presses him back into the worktop with lips or hips or hands, subtly demanding control.

“It had to be here,” John murmurs into his neck as his hands drift down to grip Sherlock’s arse. “Here, where we belong.”

“But-“ Sherlock starts, one last desperate bit of lip service paid to John’s marriage as he feels his face flush with the heat of desire, control slipping away.

“I know. I  _ know _ .  But I’ve made my choice, okay?”

Sherlock breathes deep, and surrenders. 

……………………………………………………………………………..

The susurrus of John taking off his shirt, followed by his shoes and jeans, is all Sherlock has to pinpoint him in the darkness. He takes off his own clothes, heart hammering,  finds his way to John’s skin by touch alone, and revels in John’s sigh when their chests meet.

“I admit I haven’t really planned for this,” John says with a rueful laugh, his hands skimming over Sherlock’s waist, his arse. “I wasn’t sure I’d get up the nerve.”

Sherlock hums, not trusting himself to words now, and pulls John with him to his bed. There’s a moment of awkwardness as they can’t seem to decide how to arrange themselves, but John settles propped on one elbow, his breath huffing warm against Sherlock’s cheek. 

“Want you,” he says, his hand raising gooseflesh as it trails up Sherlock’s side. 

Sherlock shudders, tries to keep his hands on John’s skin from being pushy or demanding. John needs to lead them in this dance, now; a careful choreography of desire and passion and above all decisions, choices that are John’s alone to make. 

“I’m yours,” is all Sherlock can say. No affirmative words, no demands.  Just an accepting breath as John tilts Sherlock’s head back and kisses his throat, stubble rasping against Sherlock’s collarbone. Sherlock threads his hands through John’s short hair and cradles his head, lifts one leg over John’s hip to pull him in closer, the heat of skin on skin from chest to groin making them both gasp.

John moves with him, wrapping his arms around Sherlock more fully and rolling them until he can settle between Sherlock’s legs, their erections a hard pressure between them. John pulls the blankets up over them both, leaving them in a snug, warm, quiet cocoon, the hum of life outside seemingly cut off, the only sound his and John’s ragged and unsteady breaths and the thrum of his heart in his ears. Sherlock shifts just a bit, just a small twitch of his hips, and can’t hold back a grin when John drops his head to Sherlock’s shoulder and moans.

“You’re just —God, Sherlock,” John whispers, as he rocks against Sherlock’s stomach, “I can’t tell you how much I’ve wanted to touch you like this. Ever since the first, I think.  I can’t remember not wanting to, but then, then  …God, it was over, and I … fuck. Touch me, please, I need to know you want this as much as I do.”

Sherlock wraps his hands around John’s back and kisses him deeply. He teases John’s lips with his tongue, tiny little licks at the corners of his mouth that leave John gasping.  The dark only adds to the sensation – he can’t see, but he can taste, and John’s tongue caresses his with sure, firm strokes and he can feel John’s cock in the crease of his hip: hot, and hard, and getting slick with precome.

The pleasure is building, his nerves alight with sensation from the rasp of John’s hair and the softness of his belly over firm muscle. He wants to come, wants John to come with him, wants to feel them together in the dark, hidden under the blankets as if they could pretend their choices wouldn’t ever come back to haunt them.

But they will. Sherlock knows this. So he’ll take what John is giving him now.

“There’s lube,” Sherlock says. “If you want.”

John  stills. “Yes, but not for that.” There’s a wash of cool air and a rattle as John fumbles around the drawer. Sherlock takes the opportunity of John’s body stretched above his to kiss John’s shoulder, tasting the whorls of skin of his scar until John pulls back under the blankets with the tube in his hand.  “As much as I would love to fuck you through the mattress,” John growls in his ear, and Sherlock shivers, “I don’t want to wait.”

Without warning, John shifts to straddle Sherlock’s legs. The position leaves John’s cock in line with his own, his testicles a weight over Sherlock’s groin, and Sherlock can hear the click of the cap seconds before he arches into John’s touch, cool and slick with lube.  He rocks up into John’s hands, against John’s cock, the blankets falling away from them as they move and thrust and draw their pleasure to a peak of shimmering awareness that sparks bright in the dark until they fall, gasping, together.

Sherlock clutches John to him, even as the pressure against his spent cock causes his body to twitch with aftershocks. 

John giggles as he, too, succumbs to the full-body shiver of oversensitive skin.  “Oh, my god. I don’t know I’ve ever come that hard in my life.”

“Mmmm,” Sherlock says, hoping against hope that if he says nothing, nothing else will happen. That he and John can lie together under the blankets for an eternity.

They can’t. Sherlock knows this. 

But he can pretend.

……………………………………………………………………………………………….

He allows John to snooze lightly for an hour or so, but he knows if they don’t reappear soon Mycroft will come looking for them. So he pokes John lightly in the side until he blinks awake.

“What time is it?” John asks, rubbing his eyes.

“Nineish. Past time we were back.”

“Yes, well, Mycroft can piss off. I’m rather happy where I am.” John reaches out and traces fingertips along Sherlock’s jaw. Sherlock can’t control the shudder, the shiver that John’s touch draws down his spine.  

“I…” Sherlock can’t seem to form words. He leans into the touch before he can stop himself, presses forward until John is flat against the mattress and Sherlock can lean over him. He nuzzles into John’s neck, inhaling the sleep-sweat sweetness of him.

His heart is ridiculously pleased. Contentment and bone-deep satisfaction flow through his mind, and he presses a kiss to the underside of John’s chin. And then another. And another, until John moans softly and the sound makes desire bloom warm and lush in his groin. 

John slides his hands down Sherlock’s back to cup his arse and settle Sherlock more firmly against his thickening cock.  “Thought we had to leave.” John’s voice is rough with desire, dark with promise.

“Soon.  Eventually.” Sherlock lets his head droop as John kneads his cheeks. He rocks his hips into John’s, allows the sticky slide of their cocks to catch and drag almost painfully against each other.

John reaches out, pats around for the bottle of lube they’d used earlier. He fiddles with it until he huffs annoyance and finally uses both hands, still encircling Sherlock’s back, to open it. 

“Oh, shite-“ John says,  and in that instant a cascade of lube pours over Sherlock’s arse and lower back, ice-cold and dripping.

The building heat is gone in an instant, replaced with shock. As he looks at John’s twitching lips, a bubble of amusement works its way out of his mouth and he snorts a laugh. 

“Sorry,” John says, with a chuckle.

Sherlock props himself on one elbow and skates his hand down John’s side. “No you’re not.”

“Maybe not,” John says, and his voice goes a bit husky, a bit smoky. “Because now I can do this.” John slides his hand over Sherlock’s now-slick rear, and dips his fingers between the cheeks of Sherlock’s arse to rub lightly over his hole and down over his perineum. 

The sensation is electric, a lightning bolt up his spine, and all the building desire of earlier is back in an instant. Sherlock shoves his hands up under John’s shoulders to bring them closer together, the lube on his back running down in slippery little rivulets to slick John’s stomach. Sherlock’s cock slips wetly in the crease of John’s groin, and John shoves a hand between them until he can push his cock down until it fits along Sherlock’s perineum and nestles in the crease of Sherlock’s arse. John thrusts up, and the pressure against Sherlock’s balls and arsehole is a consuming fire, John breathing in his ear is a benediction, and his “Oh, Sherlock, love, you’re fucking amazing, god, yes, I’m coming, oh—“ is an incandescent joy that has turned his life inside out, pinned his soul to John’s as a shadow to the sun, and Sherlock knows without a doubt will destroy him utterly.

………………………………………………………………………………………..

They do finally get up and shower: quick, efficient scrubbing that separates them with cold efficiency. Sherlock hates it.

John walks into the bedroom to find Sherlock staring at the bed, mussed and stained and so very, very obvious what it was recently used for.

“Wow. We should probably deal with that.” John says, and rubs a hand across the back of his neck. 

Oh God, no. Perhaps not ever. They’ve erased the sin of what they’ve done from their skin, but Sherlock can at least hold onto this, some visceral evidence that John is – or was? – his, even if only for a few hours.  

“No,” he says. “It’ll give Mycroft hives to see it. I’m going to leave it.” John’s gratifying chuckle is exactly what he was going for, an easy distraction from Sherlock’s swirling thoughts of what comes next. He starts to leave the bedroom when John puts a hand on his arm.

“We’ll figure this out,” he says, low, and Sherlock’s heart stutters with John’s frightening perceptiveness. “I’m not sure exactly how, to be honest, but we will. I will.” He pulls Sherlock in and kisses him — hard, possessive— and then says, “Okay. Let’s head back before Mycroft has the army out.” He brushes past and out toward the sitting room, and Sherlock hears the door open before he can even move.

He looks back at the wreck of the bed. Sherlock can feel the electric glow of a storm ready to hit: dangerous and wild and frightening and ready to crash down, but maybe, just maybe, he and John can weather it together.

  
  
  
  



End file.
